This research followed students over their first two years of college. During this time, many students lose sight of their goals, leading to poor academic performance and leaving STEM and business majors. This research was the first to examine longitudinal changes in future vividness, how those changes impact academic success, and identify sex…

"Preparing and Sustaining Social Justice Educators" spotlights the challenging and necessary work of fostering social justice in schools. Integral to this work are the teachers and school leaders who enact the principles of social justice-racial equity, cultural inclusivity, and identity acceptance--daily in their classrooms. This volume…

State education agencies are investing new federal relief funds in initiatives such as technology, broadband, summer programming, virtual tutoring, and teacher professional development for e-learning. Research suggests that one of the most significant impacts of the pandemic is exacerbating existing inequality and widening achievement gaps. A…

Many community colleges receive performance-based funding; therefore, many of these colleges have implemented student success courses in an effort to increase persistence and completion. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of the student success courses on persistence at Ivy Tech Community College. This study…

African American (also called Black American, or Black) students? performance in higher educational institutes reveal critical issues concerning their matriculation through higher education. A 2014 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on cohorts of university students from 2004 to 2007 showed the graduation rate of Black…

This nonexperimental, longitudinal panel study was designed to test the predictive capacity of a grit intervention within a first-year seminar course that targeted academically underprepared students at a Mississippi community college. Extant pre- and post-grit scores for developmental students enrolled in the first-year seminar were analyzed for…

This qualitative study aimed to research the perspectives of four teachers who teach low-scoring populations of students traditionally. The research questions focused on job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and retention in education about Value-Added Model scores in their evaluations. The secondary purpose was for the teachers to recommend authentic…

This study aimed to give a chance to low-income students of higher education to share the stories of their lives, which would benefit the current and future low-income students. The focus of the study is on the motivational factors for low-income students while dealing with economic and social obstacles. The theoretical framework of this study was…

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience during participation in higher education of Kumeyaay Indian Nation college graduates. Specifically, the study investigated the factors graduates perceived to contribute to their persistence and attainment of a baccalaureate degree within six years of enrollment at a four-year…

The purpose of this qualitative comparative case study was to explore the systems and structures that exist to support veterans in higher education and the academic institutions that serve veterans at two similar universities in the Midwest. Through the lens of Tinto's Theory of Integration (1988, 2012), data were collected and analyzed to…

Creating engaging student-faculty interactions has been a challenge for instructors teaching at community colleges in the United States. The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between student-faculty interactions and students' course engagement and completion. To explore this relationship, the research study collected…

Despite there being numerous studies on leadership, persistence, and sense of belonging, there are few studies that examine these constructs for student employees who work in student unions. The number of students employed, on or off campus, while working on a degree is increasing (Watanabe, 2005). One of the places on campus where students can…

There are more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) data science and analytics (DSA) jobs than qualified individuals to fill positions, indicating a gap that could be addressed if more women entered the STEM professions. To determine why women are underrepresented in these fields, this quantitative research examines the lived…

Persistence of first-year, full-time students toward graduation at U.S. community colleges poses concerns for administrators, faculty, and policymakers. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of faculty members teaching a college success seminar at an urban multicampus community college on what impedes or supports the persistence…

This applied dissertation was designed to provide a better understanding of the lived experiences of African American women in STEM undergraduate degree programs at a 4-year degree granting institution in the southernmost part of central Virginia. The central problem is that there is disparity between the number of African American women with STEM…